COPY OF DOCUMENT 2861-PS

BRITISH BLUE BOOK
Documents concerning German-Polish Relations and the Outbreak of Hostilities between Great Britain and1 Germany on September 3, 1939, London, 1939.
Document No. 12
Sir N. Henderson, British Ambassador in Berlin, to Viscount Halifax. '
Berlin, May 28, 1939.
My Lord,
I paid a short visit to Field-Marshal Goering at Karinhall yesterday.
4. At this point the Field-Marshal interrupted me with a description of President Hàcha's visit to Berlin. I told Field-Marshal Goering that it was not possible to talk of free will when I understood that he himself had threatened to bombard Prague with his aeroplanes, if Dr. Hacha refused to sign. The Field-Marshal did not deny the fact but explained how the point had arisen. According to him Dr. Hacha had from the first been prepared to sign everything but had said that constitutionally he could not do so without reference first to Prague. After considerable difficulty telephone communication with Prague was obtained and the Czech Government had agreed, while adding that they could not guarantee that one Czech battalion at least would not fire on the German troops. It was, he said, only at that stage that he had warned Dr. Hacha that, if German lives were lost, he would bombard Prague. The Field-Marshal also repeated, in reply to some comment of mine, the story that the advance occupation of Witkowitz had been effected solely in order to forestall the Poles who, he said, were known to have the intention of seizing this valuable area at the first opportunity.
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